


Carry On, Princey

by Rozelle_Celyst



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: And many other people - Freeform, I just felt that it had to be done, Multi, Probably ooc, Sanders Sides in Carry On, Slow Burn AF, noncanon appearances, transmale patton, trial
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-06-14 08:46:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15385101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rozelle_Celyst/pseuds/Rozelle_Celyst
Summary: When Roman Snow asked for an adventure….it was almost exactly what he wanted with a few flaws and twists. He’s the worst chosen one ever with his hurricane like magic, his boyfriend betrayed him, and his roommate/arch-nemesis, Virgil is missing.





	1. Chapter 1

**(Roman’s POV)**

I’m too impatient to be doing this. Every time I leave for the school year it’s always a huge fuss. During the summer we can’t even walk across the street without a chaperone and permission from the president so in autumn I just sign myself out of the children’s home and leave. 

“He goes to a special school,” one of the office ladies sitting in the plexiglass box explains to the other when I leave. “It’s a school for dire offenders,” she whispers. The other woman doesn’t even look up, not caring about what is going on.

This happens every September even if I’m not in the same care home every year. The first time, when I was 11, the Mage found me himself and brought me to Watford. Though next year I was told I had to make to Watford myself. 

_“You slayed a dragon-witch, Roman, I’m sure you can manage some walking, a few buses, and a train,”_ claimed The Mage when I asked why but truly I was fine with it, it’s a short adventure. The sad truth is that I didn’t mean to slay the dragon-witch though. I still have nightmares about it sometimes. The way the fire consumed it from the inside out, like a cigarette burn eating a piece of paper. I don’t believe it would have hurt me, for all I know it was peaceful. 

When I get to the bus station, I eat a mint Aero and wait for the first bus. After that, I then have to get on another bus and a train. Finally settled on the train I try hard to fall asleep with my bag in my lap and my feet on the seat across from me but a man a few rows back won’t stop watching me. His staring causes shivers to go down my back, I don’t know if he’s a pervert, a police officer, or a bonety hunter ( _“bonety, short for bone-teeth the only thing they’re able to keep if you get caught,”_ Patton told me when we first fought one) who could know about one of the prices on my head. I change carriages and go to sleep again but the closer I get to Watford, the more restless I get. 

Every year, I think about just spelling myself straight to school even if it kills me. I could cast a **Hurry up** on the train, but that’s a risky spell at the best of times, and my first few spells of the school year are always especially dicey. Technically, I’m supposed to practice during the summer, the small and predictable ones when nobody’s looking like turning on night-lights or changing apples into oranges.

 _“Spell your buttons and laces closed,”_ Miss. Possibelf suggested, _“that sort of thing.”_

 _“I only ever wear one button,”_ I told her while blushing as she looked down at my jeans.

 _“Then use your magic for household chores, wash dishes or polish silver,”_ she said. I didn’t have the heart to tell Miss. Possibelf that my summer meals were served on disposable plates and that I eat with plastic cutlery, only forks and spoons, never knives. I also never bother to practice my magic over the summer. To practice magic is boring and pointless, it’s doesn’t even help, it just sets me off not make me a better magician. No one knows why my magic is the way it is, why it goes off like a bomb instead of flowing through me like a fucking stream or however it works for everybody else.

 _“I don’t know,”_ Patton said when I asked him how magic feels for him. **(Can I just say in Carry On, Simon really needed a Gran Torino to guide Simon like he did with Izuku in My Hero Academia or something)** _“I suppose it feels like a well inside me. So deep that I can’t see or even imagine the bottom but instead of sending down buckets, I just think about drawing it up and then it’s there for me, as much as I need as long as I stay focused.”_ Patton isn’t always focused but when he is, he’s powerful. 

Logan is more focused but not as powerful and doesn’t like talking about his magic. One Christmas, he did tell me but that was because I kept him up until he was tired and stupid. He had told me that casting a spell felt like flexing a muscle and keeping it flexed.

 _“Like croisé devant, you know?”_ he stated. I shook my head. He was lying on a wolfskin rug in front of the fire, all curled up like an adorable kitten. _“It’s ballet, it’s like I just hold the position as long as I can.”_

Virgil told me that for him it’s like lighting a match or pulling a trigger. He really hadn’t meant to tell me, we were fighting a manichimera in the woods during our fifth year. The manichimera had us cornered and Virgil wasn’t powerful enough to fight it alone (The Mage isn’t even powerful enough to fight a manichimera alone).

 _“Do it, Princey!”_ Virgil shouted at me. _“Do it! Fucking unleash it now!”_

 _“I can’t,”_ I tried to tell him. _“It doesn’t work like that.”_

_“Yes, it fucking does.”_

_“I can’t just turn it on,”_ I said.

_“Try!”_

_“I can’t, damn it.”_ I was waving my sword around, I was pretty good with a sword already at 15 but the manichimera wasn’t corporeal. Which is my rough luck, pretty much always. (As soon as you start carrying a sword, all your enemies turn out mist and gossamer.)

 _“Close your eyes and light a match,”_ Virgil told me. We were trying to hide behind a rock, Virgil was casting spells one after another; he practically singing them.

_“What?”_

_“That’s what my mother used to say,”_ he said. _“Light a match inside your heart, then blow on the tinder.”_ It’s always fire with Virgil. I can’t believe he hasn’t incinerated me yet or burned me at the stake. He used to threaten with a Viking’s funeral when we were in our third year. 

_“Do you know what that is, Princey? A flaming pyre set adrift on the sea. We could do yours in Blackpool so all your trashy normal friends can come.”_

_“Fuck off, Virgil,”_ I’d say then try to ignore him. I have never had any normal friends, trash or otherwise. Everyone in the normal world steers clear of me if they can. Patton theorized that when normal people sense my power they instinctively shy away from me kind of like how a dog won’t make eye contact with their owner. With magicians, it’s the opposite, they love my magic and I have to try really hard to make them hate me. Unless they’re Virgil, he’s immune of course. Maybe he has built up a tolerance since we’ve been sharing a room for seven years.

That night that we were fighting the manichimera, Virgil had kept yelling at me until I went off. We both woke up a few hours later in a blackened pit. The boulder we had been hiding behind earlier was reduced to dust while the manichimera was vapour...or just gone. Virgil was sure I had scorched off his eyebrows but he looked fine, not a single hair out of place. Of course, typical Virgil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **7/22/18**
> 
> **^._.^**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Hey, it's the author, Alice. This has actually been done for a while but I kept overthinking my writing. Anyway, I don't own Carry On or the Sanders Sides.**

I never think about Watford over the summer. After my first year, I spent the whole summer thinking about everything. I thought about the people I met, the food I ate, the possible adventures I could go on, and the magic. Specifically the fact that I had magic. I ended up making myself sick thinking, daydreaming about it to the point where it actually started feeling like a fantasy.

For example, when I was younger I used to think about being a brave knight (though I guess now that I’m the chosen one I kind of am one). I also dreamed about my real parents coming back for me, royalty who just left to protect me while they tried to bring their kingdoms together in a forbidden love. _“But we always loved and missed you, Roman,”_ they’d say. _“We’ve been looking for you.”_ And then they’d take me away to live in their castle. Kingdoms, magical boarding school, both seem fake in reality especially when you wake up in a room with seven other rejects.

That first year I had beaten the memory of Watford to a pulp by the time my bus fare and papers showed up in autumn, along with a letter from the Mage himself. That’s when everything became real again.

By the next summer I didn’t think about magic at all. For months, I shut myself off from magic. I didn’t miss it, I didn’t wish for it. I just decided to let the World of Mages come back to me like a big surprise come the beginning of the school year. The Mage used to say that maybe someday he’d let me spend summers at Watford, or maybe even spend them with him, wherever he goes all summer. But he later decided that I was better off spending part of each year with Normals to stay true to myself. “Let hardship sharpen your blade, Roman.” Originally, I thought he meant my actual blade, the Sword of Mages but eventually, I figured out that he had meant me. That I was the blade, the Mage’s blade but I’m not sure if all these summers spent in an orphanage makes me any sharper but they do make me hungrier. The summers make me crave Watford life itself.

Virgil and all the old rich families they don’t believe that anyone can understand magic the way they do. They think they’re the only ones who can be trusted with it but NO ONE loves magic like I do. No other magician, classmate, parent, or otherwise knows what it’s like to live without magic. I’m the only one that knows and I will do anything to make sure it’s always here for me to come home to.

I try not to think about Watford when I’m away but it’s been near impossible this summer after everything that happened last year. I’m surprised the Mage could even focus on something like the end of the school year, I mean who would interrupt a war to send kids home for summer vacation? Not only that, I’m not a child anymore, legally I could have left care at 16. I could even have an apartment somewhere. (I could afford more than that. I have an entire bag of leprechaun’s gold in a big duffel-sized bag and it only disappears when you try to give it to other magicians.) But, no, the Mage sent me to another orphanage, just like he always does. Always moving me around like a marble under cups, like I’m going to be safe anywhere, the Humdrum can just summon me or whatever just like he did to me and Patton at the end of last year.

_“He can summon you across a body of water? That shouldn’t be possible”_

_“Well, next time I’m summoned like some half-assed squirrel demon I’ll tell him!”_ Patton had been holding my arm when I was summoned so he went right with me. He helped a lot and was the main reason we escaped.

 _“Roman,”_ he said the day we were on the train to Watford. _“This is scary.”_

_“I know, Patton, he can summon me at any time, anywhere and I don’t know how to summon at all.”_

_“But how?! He’s just so…..”_

_“Insidious like his name?”_ I’m not lying, we call him The Insidious Humdrum.

_“Yes! He’s like a creepy crawly death dealer!”_

_“A spider, Patton?”_

_“No, creepy crawly death dealer.”_

_“Okay, Patton.”_

Even though the Mage had heard us out and made sure we weren't hurt when we got back to Watford, he still sent us back home. That doesn't make sense though, even if I am the chosen one not everyone can defend themselves from the Humdrum and I especially cant.

I spent the whole summer thinking about Watford, everything that did happen and could happen. I only dwelled on the bad things, not the good things that make me impatient to come back.

I have a list of things that I missed most from Watford and I don't let myself think about until an hour before I get to Watford. I go over the list one by one, easing myself back into this magical world. I first made my list when I was twelve so there are a lot of things I need to take off but it's harder than what you would think. Finally, an hour before I arrive at Watford, I mentally take out my list.

 **Things I Miss Most About Watford:**  
**_1.) Sour Cherry Scones -_** I had never had a sour cherry scone before Watford. I normally see plain or raisin scones sold and baked mediocrely. At Watford, the scones are freshly baked at all times.

Patton had gotten bored one day and tried to count how many scones I had eaten since we started at Watford but got bored again before he could find the answer.

 ** _2.) Patton -_** This spot used to go to spaghetti but a few years back I decided to limit myself to one food item or the list would have turned into the food song from Oliver! and then I would get so hungry that my stomach would cramp.

Maybe I should have ranked Logan higher than Patton since he is my boyfriend but I've known Patton made my list first. I had befriended him during my first week in one of our Magic Words lessons.

I didn’t know what to make of him when we met, a chubby boy with light brown skin and bright red hair. He wore pointy spectacles like a witch at a fancy dress party and a giant light blue ring on his left hand. He was trying to help me with an assignment and I just kept staring at him.

_“Hey, I know you, you’re Roman Snow,” he said, “my mom told me all about you. She says you're really powerful, probably way more powerful than me. I'm Patton Bunce.”_

_“I didn't know someone like you could have a name like Patton,”_ I said, stupidly. Everything I said was stupid that year, I was stupid that year.

Patton looked confused. _“I don't know what you mean. What else would I be named?”_

_“I don't know, normally the people that I meet that look like you are named Aniketh or Aditi.”_

_“Now kiddo it's not right to judge people by how they look,”_ he responds, he seems to notice me staring at his hair, _“it's also not nice to stare even at friends.”_

 _“Are we friends?”_ I asked him, more surprised than anything.

 _“I would think so, kiddo. I am helping you with the lesson,”_ he jokes, Patton was helping me shrink a soccer ball to the size of a marble.

_“I thought you were just helping me with the lesson because I was dumb/stupid.”_

_“You're not dumb, everyone needs help sometimes and I love helping people but you seem like a nice person so I want to be your friend.”_

I was still kind of staring at his hair, it turns out he had accidentally spelled his hair that color trying out a new spell. He decided to keep it purple for that year and changed it to red the next year.

Patton’s mom is Indian while his dad is English, well they're both English. Patton's mom’s side has been in Florida for years. He told me later that his parents wanted him to stay away from me.

 _“My mom said nobody really knows where you came from and you might be dangerous,”_ she said.

_“So why didn't you listen to her and stay away from me?”_

_“Because nobody knew where you came from! You might be dangerous, Roman!”_

_“You have the worse survival instincts, Patton.”_

_“Also I wanted to help you, you were holding your wand backwards.”_

I miss Patton every summer, even when I tell myself not to. The Mage says no one can call or write me over the holidays but Patton always finds a way to send messages. Once he possessed an old man down at the shop, the one that always forgets his dentures, he spoke right through him. It was nice to hear from him and everything but it was also very disturbing. So I asked him to not do it again unless it was an emergency.

 ** _3.) Theater -_** I don't get to do theater as much as I used to. I want to though but I'm constantly caught up in schemes, drama, or on a random mission from The Mage. 

You can't reliably be a lead when the Humdrum can summon you anytime he wants. I get to play a lead sometimes and the stage is amazing, the shining lights, the flawless set, the people.

…..the people, Virgil also did theater. Of course, the prick. He’s the exact same on the stage as he is anywhere else, flawless, passionate, and fucking breathtaking.

 ** _4.) My School Uniform -_** I put this on my list when I was twelve. You have to understand, when I got my first uniform, it was my first time having clothes that fit me properly, the first time I wore a blazer and a tie. I felt tall and posh all of a sudden. Until Virgil walked into the room much taller than me and posher than everyone else.

There are eight years at Watford, your first two years you wear striped blazers with two shades of purple and green, dark green trousers, green sweaters, and red ties. You also have to wear a boater hat until your sixth year with is really a test to see if your Stay Put is strong enough to keep a hat on. Patton had to spell mine on because if I did it then I would be sleeping in the hat.

There's a brand new uniform for me every autumn when I get to our dorm. It'll be laid out on my bed, clean, pressed, and perfectly fitted no matter how much I've changed or grown.

The Upper years like me wear green blazers with white piping and optional red sweaters. There also optional capes too, I don't wear one, my scarf from Patton is enough. Patton does wear a cape though, he loves it.

I like uniforms, I like knowing what I'm going to wear every day. I don't know what I'm going to wear next year when I leave Watford.

I thought I might join the Mage's Men since they have their own uniforms, kind of like Robin Hood meets MI6. Mage says it's not my path though, _“It's not your path, Roman. Your destiny lies elsewhere.”_ He wants me to stand apart from everyone else. Separate training, special lessons, I wouldn't even be at Watford if he wasn't the headmaster and it wasn't the safest place for me in his opinion.

If I asked The Mage what I should wear to Watford he would probably dress me up like a superhero. I'm not asking people what to wear when I leave, I'm eighteen I can dress myself or get Patton to help.

 ** _5.) My Room -_** “Our room" really since I share a room with Virgil. I seriously don’t miss that.

You get your permanent room and roommate during your first year. You get to keep your stuff in your room until you graduate.

Sharing a room with your archenemy who’s wanted to kill you since you were 11, well that’s something. It did seem like the Crucible felt bad for us because it gave us the best dorm at Watford. We live in Mummer’s House on the edge of the school grounds. It was a four and a half story stone building with us living in a turret over the moat. The tower was too small to house more than one room but it was still bigger than other student rooms. The turret used to be for staff accommodations so we ended up having our own en suite.

Virgil is actually a pretty good person to share a bathroom with. He is in there all morning which is bad because I am too when I get in there. But he is clean and keeps all his stuff to his side and he doesn't like me touching them. Patton has told me that our bathroom smells like cedar and bergamot but that's probably because of Virgil, not me.

Patton shouldn't even be getting into our room if he has to stay in the female houses. I don’t know how he gets in but I believe it’s either the magic knows that Patton is actually a male or it’s because of his ring. I saw him use it to unseal a cave before so it is possible.

 ** _6.) Magic -_** Of course, not my magic, per se. I miss the constant and more casual magic of Watford. The people casting spells in and out of class, sausages being sent down the dinner table like it’s being bounced on wires.

 ** _7.) The Mage -_** I put The Mage on my list when I was twelve too. There were many times that I wanted ro take him off like in my sixth year when he pretty much ignored me all year. Everytime I tried to talk to him he would say that he had something important to do. He still tells me that sometimes. I understand that he's the headmaster and the head of the Coven so he's pretty much in charge of the Word of Mages. Also, it's not like he's my dad or anything anyway so he doesn't have to do anything for me but he is the closest thing I have to a dad.

The Mage was the one who first came into the Normal word and explain well tried to explain what I was. He still looks out for me, sometimes even when I don't realize it. When he does have time to talk to me that's when I feel the most grounded. When he's around I fight better, think better, I'm just overall better. I almost buy into what he's always told me that I'm the most powerful mage in the World of Mages ever and that all that power will be a good thing someday when I eventually get my shit together and solve more problems than I cause. The Mage is also the only one who can contact me over the summer.

The World of Mages isn't actually a world, there's no cities or neighborhoods, mages have always just lived in mundanity. It's safer that way according to Patton’s mom, it keeps us from drifting too far from the rest of the world. The fairies did that a few centuries ago, she says, got tired of dealing with everybody else, wandered into the woods and couldn't find their way back.

The only place mages live together unless they’re related is at Watford. There are a few magical social clubs and parties, annual gatherings, that sort of thing but Watford is the only place where we're all together all the time. Which is why people pair up like crazy in the last couple of years. If you don't meet your spouse at Watford, Penny says, you could end up alone or going on single tours around Magickal America when you're 32.

I don't know what Patton’s even worried about, he has a boyfriend in England since our fourth year. He was an exchange student at Watford named Micah. He plays baseball and has a face so symmetrical that you could summon a demon on it. They video-chat when he's at home and when he's at school he writes him almost every day.

 _“Yes, but long-distance relationships never work. He might dump me for a Normal or someone at his school. Mom says it happens a lot, tv shows, books, and movies say so too.”_ He tells me, Patton has a habit of quoting his mom while I always quote Patton. But they’re both being paranoid, Micah's a nice guy. He'll want to marry Patton and take him home. That's what we should be worried about.

Anyway, magic. I miss magic when I'm away. When I'm by myself, magic is something personal, my burden, gift, and secret. But at Watford, magic is just the air we breathe. It's what makes me a part of something bigger, not a thing that sets me apart.

 ** _8.) Talyn And The Goats -_** I started helping out Talyn the goatherd during my second year at Watford. For a while hanging out with the goats was my favorite thing to do. Talyn is super nice and not only were they a lot younger than the other teachers but they were surprisingly really powerful for someone who decided to tend to goats their whole life.

 _“What does power have to do with anything? Not all tall people play thrashcanball or whatever.”_ Talyn always says when I ask.

 _“You mean basketball.”_ I’d correct, being at Watford can make people out of touch with the outside world.

 _“Same difference. I’m not a soldier, why do I have to fight for a living just because I’m powerful.”_ The Mage has always said that we were all soldiers, every last one of us with even an ounce of magic. That’s what's dangerous about the old ways, he says, mages went on their merry ways, just doing whatever they felt like doing, treating magic like a toy or entitlement, not something to protect.

Talyn never needed a dog to herd the goats, just their staff. I've seen them turn a whole herd with a wave of their hand. They started teaching me how to pull back the goats one by one and how to make them all feel that they had gone too far at the same time. They had even let me help with a birthing one spring…..

Sadly, I don't get to spend as much time with Talyn as I used to but I still leave the goats and them on my list to miss. Just so I can stop for a minute to think about them.

 ** _9.) The Wavering Wood -_** I really need to take this stupid place off my list. Fuck the Wavering Wood.

 ** _10.) Logan -_** I should also probably take Logan off this list too. I used to save Logan for last. I would go all summer never thinking about him before letting him back into my thoughts when I finally get close to Watford. That way I won’t spend my summer time trying to convince myself that he was too good to be true. But now, I’m starting to think that maybe he really is too good to be true, well for me at least.

Last year right before Patton and I got snatched away by the Humdrum, I had seen Logan and Virgil in the Wavering Woods together. Maybe I had suspected something between them before but I had never thought that he would cross that line and betray me like that.

I didn’t have time to talk to Logan that day with being summoned by the Humdrum and all that. I also couldn’t talk to her over the summer either, I can’t really talk to anyone over the summer. Right now, I don’t know what Logan is to me nor do I know if I even miss him.

I’ll arrive at the station in a few minutes. I’d have to wait for someone from school to take me to Watford.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **10/13/18**
> 
>  
> 
> **^._.^**


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Hey, it's Alice again. I just wanted to let you guys know that Carry On is now on BetaBooks. I feel that this story might need a little help so I was wondering if anyone wanted to sign up and possibly help. None of y'all have to but if ya want then you can sign up using this link: https://betabooks.co/signup/book/311287. Enjoy the chapter!!!!**

When I get to the station, there is no one there to meet me. Well, no one that I know, there’s a bored-looking taxi cab driver holding a sign that says “Snow” on a piece of cardboard. 

“That's me,” I say. He looks dubious. I don’t look like a normal public school brat especially when I’m not in my uniform. My hair’s too short since I have to shave it every year at the end of the term and my shoes are cheap. I also don’t look bored enough, I can’t keep my eyes still.

“That’s me, “ I say again kind of thuggishly. ”Do you want to see my ID?”

He sighs and puts down the sign. “If you want to to get dropped off in the middle of nowhere, I’m not going to argue with you.” I get in the back of the taxi and put my bag down on the seat next to me. The driver starts the engine and turns on the radio. I close my eyes, I get motion sick on a good day but today wasn’t a good one, I’m nervous and all I’ve had to eat was a chocolate bar and a bag of chips.

We’re almost there now. This will be the last time I do this, it’s my last year at Watford. I mean I’ll still come back but not in a coming home way. 

“Candle in the Wind” comes on the radio and the driver starts singing along. **Candle in the wind** is a dangerous spell. Boys use it to give themselves more stamina, but if you emphasize the wrong syllable then you could end up starting a fire you can’t put out. I would never try to use it even if I did need it. I was never good with double entendres.

The car hits a pothole and I fly forward, catching myself on the seat in front of me. “Buckle up,” the driver snaps. I do, taking a look around. We’re already out of the city and into the countryside. I gulp and stretch my shoulders back.

The taxi driver goes back to singing, louder now like he’s really getting into the song. We hit another pothole and my head nearly hits the ceiling. We’re on a dirt road, this definitely not the usual way to Watford.

I glance up at the driver through the mirror, he had deep green skin and lips as red as raw meat. I look at him directly, he looked normal, gnarled teeth, smashed nose, and singing Elton John. Something wasn’t right...I look at the mirror again to confirm what I saw, green skin, red lips, and handsome as a pop star. A goblin.

I don’t wait to see what he’s up to. I hold my hand over my hip and start murmuring the incantation for the Sword of Mages. The sword isn’t always with me, it’s in more of a pocket dimension and only comes out when I say the magic words. The goblin hears me casting and our eyes meet in the mirror. He grins and reaches into his jacket.

If Virgil was here, I’m sure he’d make a list of all the spells I could use in this moment. There’s something in French that would do nicely but as soon as my sword appears in my hand, I grit my teeth and slash it across the front seat, taking the goblin’s head off...and the headrest too. Voilà.

He keeps driving for a second, then the steering wheel goes wild. Thank magic there’s no barrier between us, I unbuckle my seat belt and dive over the front seat and the goblin body to grab the wheel. His foot must still be on the gas, luckily we were already off the road but we were still accelerating.

I go through the goblin’s jacket, but don’t find anything besides a pack of gum and a carpet knife. This doesn’t seem like the Humdrum’s work, there’s no itchy sign of him in the air. I take a breathe just to make sure.

It’s probably just another revenge run, then. The goblins have been after me ever since I helped the Coven drive them out of Essex. They were gobbling up the drunk people in club bathrooms and the Mage was worried about losing regional slang. I think the goblin who successfully defeats me gets to be king.

This one definitely won’t be getting a crown. My blade’s stuck in the seat next to the body so I yank it out and let it disappear back into my hip. Then I remember my bag and grab that, too, wiping the blood on my grey trackie bottoms before I open the bag to fish out my wand. I can’t just leave this mess here, I don’t think it’s worth saving anything for evidence.

I hold my wand over the taxi and feel my magic scramble up to my skin. “Work with me here,” I whisper to my magic. “ **Out, out, damned spot!** ” I’ve seen Patton use the spell to get rid of many things but all it does for me is clean some blood of my pants. I guess that’s something….

The magic builds up in my arm, so think that my fingers are shaking. “Come on,” I say pointing, “ **Take it away**.” Sparks fly out my wand and fingertips.

“Fuck me, come on,” I shake my wrist and point again. I notice the goblin’s head lying in the grass near my feet, back to it's true green again. Goblins really are handsome devils but most devils are fairly fit. “I suppose you ate the cabbie,” I say kicking the head back towards the taxi. My arm feels like it's burning. “ **Into thin air!** ” I shout. I feel a hot rush from the ground to my fingertips and the taxi and the head disappears…..and so does the fence and the road……. It was only a patch of the dirt road that disappeared and it wasn’t much of the main road to start with. I just made my way back to the main road and followed it to Watford.

An hour later, sweaty and still covered in dried goblin blood and the dust that comes out of the airbags, I finally see the school buildings up ahead of me. All Normals think that Watford is an ultra-exclusive boarding school. I guess it is. The grounds are coated in glamours. Talyn told me once that we keep casting new spells on the school as we develop them. So there’s layer upon layer of protection. If you’re a Normal, all the magic burns your eyes.

I walk up to the tall iron gate with “THE WATFORD SCHOOL” spelled out on top of it. I rest my hand on the bars to let them feel my magic. That used to be all it took. The gates would spring open for anyone who was a magician. There’s even an inscription about it on the crossbar, “MAGIC SEPARATES US FROM THE WORLD; LET NOTHING SEPARATE US FROM EACH OTHER.”

“It’s a nice thought,” the Mage said when he appealed to the Coven for stiffer defenses, “but let’s not take security orders from a six-hundred-year-old gate. I don’t expect people who come to my house to obey whatever’s cross-stitched on the throw pillows.

I was at that Coven meeting with Patton and Logan. The Mage had wanted us there to show what was at stake. “The children, the future of the world!” I didn’t listen to the whole debate. My mind wandered off, thinking about where the Mage really lived and whether I’d ever be invited there. It was hard to picture him with a house, let alone throw pillows. He has rooms at Watford but he’s been gone for weeks at a time. When I was younger, l thought the Mage lived in the woods when he was away, eating nuts and berries, and sleeping in badger dens.

Security at the Watford gate and along the outer wall has gotten stiffer every year. One of the Mage’s Men, Premal, Patton’s brother, was stationed just inside today. He’s probably pissed off about the assignment. The rest of the Mage’s team is up in his office, planning the next offensive, and Premal’s down here, checking in the first years. He steps in front of me.

“Alright, Prem?”

“Looks like I should be asking you that question. What happened to you?”

I look down at my bloody t-shirt. “Goblin,” I say. Premal nods and points his wand at me, murmuring a cleaning spell. He’s just as powerful as Patton, he can practically cast spells under his breath. I hate when people cast cleaning spells on me though. I feel like a child when they do. “Thanks,” I say anyway and walk past him.

Premal stops me with his arm. “Just a minute there,” he says, raising his wand up to my forehead. “Special measures today. The Mage says the Humdrum’s walking around with your face.”

I flinch but try not to pull away from his wand. “I thought that was supposed to be a secret.”

“Right,” he said. “A secret that people like me need to know if we’re going to protect you.”

“If I were the Humdrum,” I say, “I would’ve already eaten you by now.”

“Maybe that's what the Mage has in mind,” Premal says.”At least then we’d know for sure it was him. He drops his wand. “You’re clear. Go ahead.”

“Is Patton here?”

He shrugs, “I’m not my brother’s keeper.” For a second, I think he’s saying it as a spell but he turns away from and leans against the gate.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There’s no one out on the Great Lawn. I must be one of the first students back. I start to run because I can, upsetting a huddle of swallows hidden in the grass. They blow up around me, twittering and I keep running. Over the Lawn, over the drawbridge, past another wall, and through the second and third gates.

Watford has been here since the 1500s. It's set up like a walled city, fields and woods outside the wall, buildings and courtyards inside the wall. At night, the drawbridge comes up and nothing gets past the moat and the inner gates.

I don’t stop running until I’m up at the Mummers House, falling against the door. I pull out the Sword of Mages and use it to nick the pad of my thumb, pressing it into the stone. There's a spell for this, reintroducing myself to the room after so many months away but blood is quicker and surer...and Virgil isn't here to smell it. I stick my thumb in my mouth and push the door open, grinning.

My room...it'll be “our room” in a few days but for now, it's mine. I walk over to the windows and crack one open, the fresh air smells even sweeter now that I'm inside. I open the other window, still sucking on my thumb, and watch the dust swirl in the breeze and in the sunlight, then fall back on my bed. 

The mattress is old, stuffed with feathers and preserved with spells, and I sink in. _Merlin. Merlin, Morgan, and Methuselah, it's good to be back._ It's always so good to be back.

The first time I came back to Watford, my second year, I climbed right into my bed and cried like a baby. I was still crying when Virgil came in. _"Why are you already crying?"_ he snarled, _"You’re ruining my plans to push you to tears."_

I close my eyes now and take in as much air as I can, feathers, dust, lavender, moat water, and the slightly acrid smell that Virgil says is the merwolves. Virgil hates merwoves, sometimes he leans out the window and spits into the moat just to spite them. If he were here already, I’d hardly smell anything over his posh soap. I take a deep breath and try to catch a hint of cedar.

There’s a rattle at the door causing me to jump to my feet, holding my hand over my hip and calling again for the Sword of Mages. That’s the third time I’ve had to pull it out today, maybe I should just leave it out.

The incantation is the only spell I always get right, perhaps because it’s not like other spells. It’s more of a pledge, “In justice. In courage. In defence of the weak. In the face of the mighty. Through magic and wisdom and good.” That’s how you summon it but it doesn’t have to appear. The Sword of Mages may be mine but it doesn’t belong to anyone. It doesn’t appear unless it trusts you.

The hilt materializes in my grip and I swing the sword up to my shoulder just as Patton pushes the door open. I let the sword drop. “Pat, you need to stop doing that. I almost took your face clean off.” He laughs and apologizes before sitting on Virgil’s bed.

“If Virgil finds out you touched his bed he will kill you,” I say. Pat just shrugs and laughs again. I twist my wrist and the sword disappears.

“You don’t look so good, Roman,” he said.

“I ran into a goblin on the way here.”

“Can’t they just vote for their next king or something?” His voice is light but I can tell he’s sizing me up. The last time she saw me, I was a bundle of spells and rags. The last time I saw Pat, everything was falling apart…

We’d just escaped the Humdrum, fled back to Watford and burst into the White Chapel in the middle of the end-of-year ceremony (poor Elspeth was accepting an award for eight years of perfect attendance). I was still bleeding from my pores for some reason, no one really knew why, Patton was crying. His family was there, everyone’s families were there, his mom started screaming at the Mage. “ _Look at them! This is your fault!_ ” Premal had gotten in between them and started screaming back. People thought the Humdrum might be right behind us so they ran out of the Chapel with their wands out. It was my typical end-of-year chaos times a hundred and it felt worse than just chaotic, it felt like the end.

Patton’s mom spelled their whole family away including Premal. It was probably just to their car but it was still really dramatic. I haven’t talked to Pat since. Part of me wants to just grab him right now and pat him down head to toe just to make sure he’s whole but Patton hates scenes as much as his mom loves them. _"Don’t say hello, Simon, because then we’ll have to say goodbye and I don’t like goodbyes."_

My uniform is laid out at the end of my bed so I start putting it away piece by piece. New gray pants, new green-and-purple striped tie, etc etc.

Patton sighs loudly behind me. I walk back to my bed and flop down facing him trying not to smile from ear to ear. His face was twisted into a pout.

“What’s got you down, padre?” I ask.

“My room again,” he sighs. I feel bad for Patton, he can’t change his room because according to the Mage, _“the crucible already chose where you have to stay, it can not be changed.”_ Which is stupid, I’m pretty sure there is a transfemale in one of the male houses that really wants to switch with Patton.

“At least you to see Trixie again,” I say trying to help Patton feel better.

“True, she turned her hair into a dandelion puff which was really cool but then the wind blew it away and she started crying. It confused me a little, aren’t dandelions supposed to get blown away.”

I laugh. “Trixie is half pixie so I don’t think she’s all there.”

“That’s a little mean to say, Roman. I do think she uses that as an excuse sometimes though. I hope she doesn’t turn her hair into a dandelion again, it’s just to tempting to blow it.” I try not to laugh and beam at him. Great snakes, it’s good to see him. “It’s your last year you can make it through this,” I say.

Patton got serious, “It’s our last year,” he exclaims, “guess what you’ll be doing next summer.”

“What?”

“Hanging out with me.”

I grin, “hunting the humdrum?”

“Nope.” We laugh and I kinda of grimace because the Humdrum looks like me well 11 year old me at least. I would’ve thought that I had hallucinated the whole thing if Patton hadn’t seen him too. I shudder.

Patton ends up seeing this. “You’re too thin,” he says.

“It’s the tracksuit.”

“Change, then.” He’s already changed into his uniform. ”Go on,” she says, “it’s almost snack time.” I smile again and jump off the bed, grabbing a pair of jeans and a purple sweatshirt that says “WATFORD LACROSSE” which Logan plays.

Patton grabs my arm when I walked past Virgil’s bed on the way to the bathroom. “It’s good to see you,” he whispers. I smile again, Patton makes my cheeks hurt. “Don’t make a scene,” I whisper back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **12/5/18**
> 
> **^._.^**


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I didn't get to ask this in my last chapter since I was trying to awkwardly ask for help with this story but I have a quick question. I was thinking about changing the name of the story but the only name idea I have is, "You're The Sun and I'm Flammable," do y'all guys like that name or possibly have other name ideas....or should I just keep the current name?**

**(Patton’s POV)**

He looks too thin. Thinner than usual and even worse, scraped. Roman always looks better after a few months of Watford’s food. It was normal to see him extremely thin. His broad shoulders and nose looking weird with the skin hanging off his bones. But today it was worse than ever. His face looks chapped. His eyes are lined with red, and the skin around them looks rough and patchy. His hands are red, too, and when he clenches his fists, the knuckles go white. Even his smile was awful. Too big and red for his face. I could barely look at him.

I reach for his sleeve but luckily he kept walking because if he didn’t then I would have held him forever and spelled both of us as far away from Watford as possible and only come back when the war was over. Let the Mage, the Pitches, the Humdrum and everyone else who wants to fight in the wars they seem to have their hearts set on. Me and Roman could get a place in Anchorage. Or Casablanca. Or Prague. I could do art while he’d sleep and eat. And maybe we’d both live until the far end of 19 or 20 if we’re lucky. I would definitely do it, I’d take him away from here but I know he is needed here and is the only one who can make a difference. If I took away Roman and kept him safe then there probably wouldn’t be a World of Mages to come back to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **12/5/18**
> 
> **^._.^**


End file.
